


Coney Island Baby

by brokentoy



Series: Boys of summer [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, boys being boys in the sun by the ocean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 16:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1694300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokentoy/pseuds/brokentoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘’Why is this so important to you?’’ Steve asks, and Bucky grimaces. </p><p>He wishes he could tell, but he doesn’t know how.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coney Island Baby

**Author's Note:**

> \- this is a prequel to [Best laid plans](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1673492).  
> \- thank you to [triedunture](http://stuffimgoingtohellfor.tumblr.com/) for the beta.  
> \- I'm currently crying my Bucky feels on tumblr @ [brokentoyinlalaland](http://brokentoyinlalaland.tumblr.com/)

Bucky catches up to him within ten minutes. He finds Steve sitting by the end of the dock, one of the smallest by the ocean side. The late afternoon sun is on its way down, Steve’s shadow long and solitary as Bucky looks at him from a few feet away.  
  
Nobody is around, voices in the distance reminding Bucky that there are people having fun somewhere further down the boardwalk, away from this deserted side.

People buying cotton candy and lining up for rides; couples smiling at each other and little kids running around, far away from here.   
  
Steve likes these kind of places when he feels like being alone, and Bucky would feel like he’s intruding if he didn’t really need to talk to him.   
He watches for a minute, takes in the slump of Steve’s shoulders and the way the orange light falls around him, then takes a deep breath and walks closer.   
  
Steve hears him approaching if the sudden stiffening of his back is at all telling, but he says nothing so Bucky just takes it as invitation and sits next to him, saying nothing.

He doesn’t look at Steve and Steve doesn’t look at him, and they stay like that for a while, dangling their feet over the water, smell of salt all around them.

Bucky doesn’t really know what to say anyway. 

  
His heart is racing a little faster, has been for a little while now, and he wonders not for the first time in ten minutes if it’s finally too much, if Steve will end up hating him.

‘’Are you still mad at me?’’ he finally asks, without looking up from where his eyes are following two seagulls flying on the line of the horizon.

Steve doesn’t answer, and Bucky didn’t really expect anything else.

He knows how Steve can get when he’s angry, how difficult he can be to deal with when he’s not in the right mood. He wishes he didn’t, but he’s had a lifelong experience by now and that’s never stopped him from always making the same mistakes again and again.

‘’Look,’’ he tries again, ‘’I’m sorry.’’

He takes a deep breath and lets himself fall backwards with a thud, enjoying the last of the sun until he can. He stretches like a cat, muscles sore by a long morning by the docks, and closes his eyes.

They stay like that for a while longer, and then Steve huffs out an exasperated breath and falls heavily at his side, as graceless as he could be.

‘’Why do you always do this, Buck?’’ he asks, ‘’Why don’t you just give it a rest?’’

Bucky says nothing, thinks about it before answering. 

‘’I don’t know,’’ he answers after a while, voice soft. ‘’I guess I want you to be happy?’’

Steve laughs a little at that, his body so close that the vibrations make Bucky tremble a little.

‘’I don’t need you to find me a girl to be happy.’’

He opens his mouth to say something but Steve continues with less humor: ‘’And being rejected every time definitely does not make me happy.’’

Bucky squeezes his eyes to calm down the flash of anger threatening to come back. The same anger he had felt when Betty laughed at Steve’s face when he asked her to go together on one of the attractions. The same, identical anger he felt two weeks before when it was Nancy Baker laughing, and Lily O’Riley before her. 

They all acted the same, all the girls Bucky brought for their double dates would always find Steve exceptionally funny in the most cruelest way while their friends clung to Bucky’s arm and make sweet eyes at him, Steve looking like his heart was breaking a little more every time.   
  
But Bucky would always try again, over and over, and still Steve would accept to go against his own better interest.

‘’Steve,’’ he sighs, ‘’I’m sorry. I really am.’’

Seagulls screech in the distance, and behind his closed eyes Bucky thinks they sound hungry. 

He feels Steve’s hand touching his lightly, knuckles bumping knuckles.

‘’I’m not really angry you know. I just— I wish you’d stop. Let me do my own thing.’’

‘’If I let you do your own thing you’ll never find yourself a nice dame pal,’’ Bucky says, smiling fondly.

‘’Maybe I don’t need one,’’ Steve says in a hushed voice, suddenly more serious. ‘’Maybe that’s not what I want.’’

Bucky sighs, fingers touching Steve’s lightly. He turns his head and finally opens his eyes again, finding the sun has moved a little more than he expected. There’s still plenty of light though, and from behind them it’s hitting them so he can see Steve’s lashes casting long shadows on his cheek. 

The little sun he’s had in the past few weeks of summer has dusted his nose with freckles, and Bucky is thrown for a second at how close they are.

‘’Of course you want one Steve, you just need to find the right one for you.’’ 

They’re lying so close now, their heads so curved into each other the little breeze coming from the ocean almost makes their hair tangle.   
  
Steve has a small nose, a bit upturned and still childish even at almost eighteen, and not for the first time it makes Bucky think of a button. He wonders idly what would happen if he raised his hand and pushed the tip. If Steve would laugh, or swat his hand away? 

His fingers hitch to touch, moving restlessly until Steve grips his hand a little bit tighter, stilling it.

‘’Why is this so important to you?’’ Steve asks, and Bucky grimaces. 

He wishes he could tell, but he doesn’t know how.

It’s not his fault he can’t believe no one but him can see Steve for what he is. How pretty he looks in the afternoon light, both here lying on the pier by the ocean and in their small apartment, drawing on the floor. How sweet his smile is, the curve of his lips so red Bucky thinks dames would kill for that kind of color to come naturally. How his skin is turning golden under the sun and so far from the sickly pale of winter months. His long lashes, the way his eyes lit up with joy at the smallest things Bucky does for him.   
  
He wishes he could tell Steve this without it sounding weird, but he knows he just can’t. It’s not so easy for him, and it maybe never will be.   
  
So he blinks once, twice and a third time while looking at Steve directly in the eyes. Pushes his head a bit closer, that little inch that’s missing until their foreheads are touching and their noses almost brushing.

‘’I don’t know,’’ he whispers again.

Steve makes a small frustrated noise, a little disappointed. He doesn’t move, and he keeps holding his gaze as Bucky continues: ‘’I will stop, I promise. If you don’t want to I won’t try anymore. Just let me do something special for your birthday and then I promise you won’t hear about it from me ever again.’’

Steve looks at him suspiciously. ‘’Ever again? You mean you’ll leave me alone if I tell you to?’’

‘’Yes,’’ Bucky nods, their noses bumping with the movement.

‘’You promise.’’

‘’I do.’’

‘’For my birthday, you say? What are you up to now?’’

Bucky grins at Steve’s resigned voice. They know each other too well.

‘’You’ll see. You won’t regret it, trust me.’’

Steve shakes his head dubiously but says nothing more.

They stay like that until night falls.

 

 


End file.
